


Abandon Your Gods

by sleepycryptid



Series: Junie Tyrone and her Titan Boyfriend [2]
Category: Labyrinths of Astoria (Visual Novel)
Genre: Brief mention of contemplated suicide, F/M, Junie’s back and she’s unhinged, it’s more out of spite than actual wish to die but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepycryptid/pseuds/sleepycryptid
Summary: What do you owe them, anyway?
Relationships: Astraeus/Main Character (Labyrinths of Astoria)
Series: Junie Tyrone and her Titan Boyfriend [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976221
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Abandon Your Gods

**Author's Note:**

> This is the only other one I’ve written for her so far, it just took me ages to post it.

“—the ritual?”

June floats back into her body like a leaf caught in the tide. Her head is still swimming, likely because it’s a better alternative to facing what’s happening now.

Now the Gods themselves are huddled about in Cyprin’s empty office. June sits, sunken into one of the chairs, staring off into the space outside one of the windows. She sees no reason to pay any attention to what they are saying—none of it has anything to do with her anyway.

She’s just a _human_ , after all.

A hand lays itself firmly on her shoulder, and she has to keep herself from visibly snarling as she jerks bodily away from it. Her eyes snap to Hades’, and the way he doesn’t even react to the pure vitriol in her stare makes her realize how truly alone she is here. There is no one on her side, no one to help her—to save her.

“Are you ready for the ritual?” Hades repeats, a detached smile on his face. He truly believes that once Hera is reincarnated this will all blow over. June will be gone, but he will still have his happy ending.

Her hands shake, a little with uncertainty and a little with leftover anger. She stuffs them into her pockets, unwilling to show anything other than staunch defiance to her last. Her knuckles, clenched as they are, brush against something cool. The contrast to the burning, almost feverish heat of her skin nearly makes her gasp.

_The petals._

She’d first noticed them after her bittersweet goodbye. The pain is still fresh—a cold realization that not even Cyprin, a friend closer than even May, was willing to stand up to the Gods for her.

“I...” Her voice comes out soft, hoarse. She realizes how long it’s been since she’d used it. Hours of sitting despondent while those around her discussed her fate. “I just need a few minutes.”

“There is no reason to wait any longer,” Zeus’ voice rumbles like thunder, and June feels a spike of panic despite herself. Clutching the petals in her pocket, she steels herself. She has one last trump card to play, but she can’t do it here. She has to get away. “We should carry out Hera’s resurrection as soon as possible.”

“ _Please_.” Despite it being a plea, June’s voice comes out forceful like a demand. She glares up at Hades, then Aphrodite. “If you’re making me sign my life away the _least_ you owe me is a few minutes to myself. I just want to sit outside for a while—spend my final moments as a normal human up on the roof under the stars. If Hera’s coming back tonight, a little fresh air won’t stop her.”

Aphrodite buckles first. June isn’t surprised—she’d always had a soft spot for the Tyrones. Not enough to keep her hand down during the vote, but at least it works in her favor now. “Surely it wouldn’t hurt.” She turns a pacifying gaze on the King of Gods, who stares hard at her for a moment before nodding begrudgingly.

June waits no longer. She brushes past every god stuffed in that single office and strides out the door with her eyes burning and her chest about to burst. It’s all she can do to hold it all in until she makes it to the stairwell.

The sobs bubble past her lips once the door clicks shut behind her, and she breaks into a run so quickly that the tip of her shoe catches on the concrete and makes her stumble. There’s dull pain in her shins and palms where she catches herself, but she just pushes herself forward like a sprinter.

She scrambles up like she’s being chased. She knows her time is running short.

She bursts out the roof access door, halfway to hyperventilating.

“It’s over...there’s nothing...” She lets the door slam loudly behind her. When she takes another step further, her shoes catches. It frustrates her enough that she kicks them both away. The tears flow freely up here in the night where no one can see her. There are no airs to put on. There’s no face to save. Her face is hot with emotion but the wetness on her cheeks makes the breeze feel like ice.

Everything about her feels too constrained in that moment. The collar of her shirt chokes her, and she tears at the buttons until they come loose and it falls away, leaving her in her thin camisole that beats against her skin in the wind. She tears at the tie in her hair, letting the knot come apart until her braids waterfall over her shoulders on both sides. She would tear her own skin off in that moment if she could—anything to rid herself of _his_ touch. Of _his_ influence. _His_ memory.

She doesn’t just sob, she _wails_ in a way she hadn’t since she was a child who fell from atop the monkey bars or awoke from a terrible nightmare. She screams the way she had wanted to back in the park when she’d hurled her engagement ring into the fountain.

In that moment there is no one she can turn to, no one she wishes to see. Everyone has either betrayed her or conceded their claim. No friends nor family can help her. No one...

_Call to me as you have been..._

No one, except—

“ **ASTRAEUS!!!** ”

She screams so loud that the force of it presses her into the ledge of the building. She can see all the lights and people and cars below, and for a heart-stopping moment she considers throwing herself downward.

Was that it, then? Her only escape was to meet with pavement? To rid the world of the goddess seed that sleeps within her forcefully?

She’s terrified at the portion of her that feels vindictive satisfaction at the idea—at just how prevalent it is. In that moment she hates the Gods enough to destroy herself in order to spite them.

“Astraeus, _please_...” She can only sag helplessly against the ledge that she hugs like a lifeline, pleading his name into the night. She doesn’t know how her heart has been calling to him, has no clue how to do it on command. She can only hope the desperation in her voice serves enough as a beacon, that wherever he is he can still hear her. Will still come to her.

She stares hopeless at the streets below and wills this pain to end.

_I’m alone..._

When hands draw her gently away from her precarious position she nearly believes that she has missed her final window. Perhaps Hades or someone else had come to her, to take her away for the final time.

But then the familiar sweet perfume of cherry blossoms tickles her nose and the ache in her heart eases ever so slightly. There is no fighting the gentle way his arms slip around her, the loose hug providing comfort but also ample room to pull away should it not be what she wants from him.

“Such pain,” He whispers, lips brushing the shell of her ear, “I am here, now. Tell me what you need.”

She feels suddenly very foolish, trembling like a child in his arms. She bites her lip against another sob, fisting her hands around the lapels of his jacket.

“You made it.” She says when she has regained some control, feeling herself smile tiredly against his shirt.

“It’s dangerous to be here, in the heart of enemy territory.” He rumbles, but then he turns his head against hers and nuzzles her with affection so soft she feels her heart flutter in her chest. “But nothing could possibly keep me away when you call my name that way.”

She snakes her arms around his neck, pulling so tight that they could meld together. He splays his fingers out against her back and holds her as if afraid her legs could give out. She concedes silently that she probably doesn’t seem so stable right now.

“I thought I...”

She can’t even bring herself to say it aloud. Thankfully, Astraeus seems able to read her like a book.

“You are never alone, Blossom.” There’s a smile in his words, soft and sweet. “I told you I would come when you called.”

“Yeah, well,” She barks a bitter laugh, “things have a habit of breaking around me lately, I think.”

He pulls back, though only far enough to tenderly swipe some tears from her face.

“You were my last chance.”

He doesn’t break eye contact as he lifts a finger to his lips. “Is that the only reason you called to me?” His tongue flicks out, lapping up the salty tears staining his skin. She expects anger or hurt—but she finds only rapt fascination in his unblinking eyes.

When she speaks, the answer comes easily—even if it surprises her. “No.” Her tone is even, even when her throat is scratchy from screaming. “I think I always sensed that I could count on you—even if I didn’t always want to admit it.”

The way his gaze softens, and he smiles the smile of a man who had resigned himself to a broken heart, makes her ache for him.

“Ah,” He breathes, eyes drinking her in as if seeing her for the first time, “what a gift you’ve given me.”

She smiles, as softly as he does, and when she reaches up to run her fingers through his thick hair, fingers disappearing beneath the sea of inky black as she drags her nails lightly over his scalp, he very nearly purrs. His eyes flutter shut for a moment, a noise on the edge of a throaty moan rumbling in his chest.

When he opens his eyes again he leans so close that their foreheads nearly rests against each other.

“Oh, June,” He whispers. Awe colors his tone like a sunrise. “You are...so beautiful.”

She gives a crooked, wry grin. “I look a mess.” Her nails scrape indulgently against his scalp one more time. His hair is silk in her hand.

“And yet the chaos suits you.” He tucks an errant braid behind her ear, smiling gently. “There is truly no aspect to you that I do not adore, June. Even the worst of you—that which you believe to be hideous.”

She leans into his warmth, clinging tighter to his jacket. The sincerity in his words wraps her up like a blanket, a comfort especially now.

“But even this beauty cannot last forever. Like a flower you seemed, and so you remain. Here for me to cherish; my joy tempered by the agony of how I may never see it again.”

And just like that she threatens to crumble again. Her blood runs cold at his words, the thought that he may be leaving forever almost too much to bear just now. She releases him, the calm in her soul that he’d granted her shattered just like that. Her eyes sting again, but even so she holds together for as long as she can.

“You’re leaving again.” She concludes quietly, taking a few steps back. Her eyes fall away from him. If she focuses hard on a fixed point, she thinks she can force the rising panic back down, “You won’t come if I call again, will you?”

“I cannot, Blossom.”

She meets his eyes and the regret there nearly pierces her through. There’s a starved look about him, as if her presence is what sustains him and being without her is causing him to waste away, fade to nothing.

“This world is poisoning me. The very air is toxic.” She can feel the wind kicking up again, the petals that will carry him away from her. To a place she cannot reach. One last time he brushes his fingers against her cheek, the last bit of contact he gives before turning and stepping away. It looks as if the very act is physically painful for him. “We’ve run out of time.”

The same flare of defiance that had brought her here in the first place tears up again. She sets her jaw, rushing forward before he can get too far, “No.” She tells him, and yanks him back around by his jacket.

Her lips have claimed his almost before she’s realized what she is doing. She drinks him in like spring water after spending a week in the desert, sucking in a gasp through her nose and nearly whimpering with need. Her teeth catch his lip, tugging at it.

His hands on her are soft at first, but soon he is clawing at her in desperation. His fingers tangle around her braids at her scalp, pressing her to him. Her hands find their way past his jacket, stroking along his chest, pressing under his shirt and into the warm skin and taught muscle. It drags a moan from his throat as his mouth roams past hers, along her jaw and down her throat.

Her nails trace along his skin, and he sighs.

“I...that...”

He pulls away, just by inches, to grin down at her. The joy in his eyes is brilliant enough to blind.

“Do you want me to stay, then?” He asks quietly. The smile falters a little as he lifts a hand to his chest, rubbing absently. She can feel how he hurts, a phantom pain in her own chest. “For...as long as I can?”

She shakes her head, pulling him into another searing kiss that leaves them both breathless.

“No,” she murmurs against his lips, meeting his eyes with conviction. “I want you to take me with you.”


End file.
